


Eye of the Beholder

by 0bsidianFire



Series: Static Tuned in to Reason [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Au Ra Xaela (Final Fantasy XIV), Backstory, Consequences, Discovering Magic, Establishing Character Moment, Gen, Headcanon, Kid Fic, Magic, Magic Theory, Origin Story, Reasonable adults, Teacher and Students, Theorycrafting, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2019, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22951843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bsidianFire/pseuds/0bsidianFire
Summary: Pushing the boundaries of what you know of magic always has consequences. Even when (especially when) you are a five year old girl who doesn't really know what you are doing with aether.Kharagal learned early that people are wary around mages who experiment with aether. She fortunately got her first (real) lesson about experimenting safely not long after. And her first (real) teacher...For FFXIVwrite2019 - Prompt #4: Shifting Blame
Series: Static Tuned in to Reason [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/860852
Kudos: 2





	Eye of the Beholder

_ Set when Kharagal is around five years old _

“Now remember, when you draw your aether out, try to keep it skinny,” Teacher Maral told the children around her. “All you want to do is make a line with it.” She held her hands at either end of the line she drew in the sand and a thin strand of shining aether formed right over the line.

Kharagal giggled to herself and copied Teacher Maral. This was easy! Mommy had showed her how to do this while Mommy cut leather. It was how Mommy marked lines on the hides she was cutting apart and she was so proud Kharagal could make aether lines already!

“Now we’re going to do something a bit more complicated.” Teacher Maral drew something else out in the sand. “Draw a circle and then draw a triangle in it.” The children did so, making a bunch of shaky circles with uneven triangles in them.

Kharagal tried to make her circle as round as possible (Mommy taught her the trick for that!) and made her triangle as triangle-like as possible (Mommy said triangles were hard, and she would teach Kharagal that later). It was still… uneven… though. Two of the triangle sides were longer than the other side was and that didn’t look nice in the circle.  _ It would look better if there was two triangles, _ she decided and drew in a second triangle in the circle that mirrored the first one.  _ That looks even now! _ Mommy often used two uneven shapes when she worked with leather to make an even one.

“Now you are going to make your ather take the shape of the triangle,” said Teacher Maral. She put her hands on either side of her own drawing (which had a triangle that was perfect, Kharagal noticed), and a triangle of aether formed just above the lines. So did a floating spot of golden light the same color as Teacher Maral’s hair. “If you do it right, you should see the glow of a light spell too,” said Maral. When she took her hands away, the floating light stayed there, even though the lines of aether were gone. “Now you all try!” She smiled at the children around her. “Just make sure your aether doesn’t make the circle shape too, or it won’t work.”

_ But my circle has two triangles, _ Kharagal thought.  _ Which one do I use? _ She frowned as she looked at her circle.  _ Or maybe I use both since they are both inside the circle? _ She looked at Teacher Maral’s circle and its nice proper triangle.  _ Maybe it only works if everything is even? _ All the other kids were trying to make that light appear, but none of them were managing it and all their triangles (and their aether lines that traced them) were uneven too.

Confident that making the shape even in some way would help, Kharagal put both her hands on either side of her circle and tried it make her aether trace both triangles at once. It was hard, but she had managed to trace out the triangle pointing right completely and one of the lines of the triangle pointing left. As she started tracing out the second line of that triangle, she felt  _ something _ start to build over the lines she was holding together. It just wasn’t ready to come out yet.  _ This is it! The triangles have to be even! _ It just needed one more line…

**“What do you think you’re doing!?!”** Something shoved her hard on her shoulder, sending her sprawling. Kharagal looked up in a daze to see Teacher Maral standing over her with gritted teeth and narrowed pale green eyes. Kharagal gulped. Teacher Maral looked mad. Teacher Maral knelt down and pointed at the shapes Kharagal had drawn in the sand. “Where did you learn this?”

Kharagal blinked up at her. She had never seen Teacher Maral like this before. “Nowhere? It didn’t seem right for the triangles to be uneven…” she trailed off as Teacher Maral held her arm. Teacher Maral still looked mad.

Teacher Maral looked at all the other children around them, and her face softened. “This lesson is over, you can all come back tomorrow.” The other children looked from her to Kharagal and then ran off in the direction of camp.

Teacher Maral turned back to Kharagal. Now she looked even angrier than she had been before. “ What do you have to say for yourself? You almost hurt everyone here!” She began pulling Kharagal towards camp. Kharagal scrambled to keep up with her pace. “No, what am I saying? You’re a child.” Teacher Maral continued talking and Kharagal didn’t know if Teacher Maral was talking to herself or Kharagal. “What are your parents teaching you? First your brother winds up cursed by Karash whenever he’s away from them, now you start casting war spells because that’s the most symmetrical way for aether to be shaped!”

Teacher Maral pulled Kharagal straight to Daddy and Mommy’s tent. Mommy was outside making leather armor like she usually did. Daddy wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “Orbei!” Teacher Maral yelled. “What have you done this time?”

Mommy pushed her red hair out of her face and looked up from the leather she was working on.. She looked from Kharagal to Teacher Maral in surprise. “What happened?” She put down her knife and walked over to them.

Teacher Maral stood in front of Kharagal and kept her out of Mommy’s reach. She jabbed her finger at Mommy the way Mommy had told Kharagal not to do unless she wanted to get someone mad at her. “Somehow, your daughter learned war magic. She obviously can’t have come up with it herself, so she must have learned it from you.” Teacher Maral was whispering, but it was an angry whisper. “You already have one problem child; the least you could do was not mess up his younger sister.”

“What?!” Now Mommy looked mad. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned so close to Teacher Maral’s face their horns almost touched. “Me and Bayar have done nothing different with our children than anyone else has. How dare you suggest otherwise!” Mommy’s blue eyes looked weird, like she was almost about to cry, but was so mad she couldn’t. “Kharagal,” Mommy didn’t look mad anymore when she looked at Kharagal. “What happened?” Now she had the determined look on her face she had when she asked Kharagal and Aruktai why they were fighting. The look that said she wanted the truth and she was listening to both of them.

Kharagal gulped. Mommy would make it okay. Mommy always listened to her and her brother. “Teacher Maral had us–”

“What is going on here?” a low rich voice cut through Teacher Maral and Mommy’s argument. Kharagal turned around in Teacher Maral’s grip and gulped. Watching all of them was Udgan Toragana and Udgan Bayan and many other people from camp. It was Udgan Bayan who had spoken; his voice so low, Kharagal felt it in her bones. He had the fresh skull of a gembuck with no horns mounted on his shoulder, his face showed age lines and his dark hair was streaked with white. Kharagal always felt comfortable when he showed up.

“Bayar and Orbei have yet another problem child on their hands,” said Teacher Maral. “Either that or they’re teaching her war magic without telling her what it is.”

“Really.” It was Udgan Toragana’s high clear voice this time. She was so old, her arms and legs were overgrown with scales and the gembuck skull that covered her entire face was inscribed with so many symbols it barely looked like a skull anymore. The crystalline horns were the only part of the skull that was untouched and they glittered in the late afternoon light as did the many beads plaited into her hair. Kharagal had always been spooked by her.

“You know we haven’t been doing that,” said Mommy. “Neither me or Bayar have ever had the talent for war magic. And even if we did, we know better then to teach it to our children before they know how dangerous it is.”

Udgan Toragana hummed to herself. Her skull mask turned to look directly at Kharagal. “Did you know what your aether would do once you finished shaping it?”

Kharagal frowned. “Teacher Maral said–”

“I don’t mean what Maral said the aether shape she was showing you did.” Udgan Toragana interupted Kharagal, but she didn’t sound mad. “I mean if you knew what your own aether would do if it was in the shape you made.”

Kharagal looked at Udgan Toragana’s skull and really thought about what she had been doing earlier. “No…” she said slowly. “I… didn’t. I just thought the shape didn’t look right. So I made it look right. I didn’t know adding in another shape would change what my aether did.”

Udgan Toragana’s skull looked at Udgan Bayan and they nodded at each other. Udgan Toragana walked over to Kharagal, Mommy and Teacher Maral. She placed a hand on Kharagal’s shoulder and looked at Teacher Maral. “I don’t think you’ll be needed here anymore,” she told Teacher Maral. The skull cocked to the side. “In fact, I don’t think Kharagal will be learning from you for quite some time.”

“But–” said Teacher Maral.

“My dear,” chuckled Udgan Toragana. It sounded like bells chiming. “I am three times your age and have seen more curious mages nearly blow themselves up because they didn’t know what they were doing than because they did. Unless something very, very wrong is going on, what Kharagal needs is for someone to explain to her how to take precautions with aether and the problem will fix itself.”

Teacher Maral looked from Udgan Toragana to Karagal and curtly nodded. She let go of Kharagal’s arm and backed away slowly before walking back into the rest of the camp. Udgan Bayan followed after her.

Mommy looked at Udgan Toragana strangely, like she was looking over a particularly mishapped piece of leather she didn’t quite know what to do with yet. “I suppose we should talk more in private?” Her eyes flicked to all the people watching them.

“Of course,” said Udgan Toragana. Without waiting for permission, she led Kharagal and Mommy into their own tent.

Inside, Udgan Toragana slowly lowered herself to the floor. Then she did something Kharagal had never seen her do before. She took her skull mask off. Kharagal gaped at a face that was nearly covered with scales except for her eyes, eyebrows and lips. “Since I will be teaching you from now on, it seems pointless that you don’t know what I look like.” Udgan Toragana pulled a long plait of hair, heavy with beads, over her shoulder and began unraveling it.

“You’re going to be teaching me?” gaped Kharagal. Mommy was gaping at Udgan Toragana too.

Udgan Toragana shrugged. “Of course. Maral has the patience to teach the basics to you children, but she lacks the…” she combed a pile of beads out of her hair and into a dish that had appeared out of nowhere. “Flexibility… to deal with students who want to push the boundaries.” Her bright green eyes flicked over Kharagal. “And you, my dear, pushed the boundaries very far today for your age.”

Kharagal thought of how she had put the second triangle in the circle just because it felt right to do even though Teacher Maral had never told them to do that. And how mad that had made Teacher Maral. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, quite the opposite in fact.” Udgan Toragana laughed to herself, and combed out more beads into the dish. “But it means that you can quickly find yourself in more trouble than everyone else if you aren’t careful.” At this, she stopped unbraiding her hair and held Kharagal’s hands in her own. “Do you know the reason Maral was mad at you was because she was scared of you?”

“She was… scared?” Kharagal made out. Why would Teacher Maral be scared of her?

Udgan Toragana nodded. “Very much. She was scared you would badly hurt the other children there.”

“But… how would I have hurt them?” Kharagal blinked over at Mommy. “I’d never want to hurt them.” Mommy scooted next to her and pulled Kharagal in a one-armed hug.

“The spell you were making would have.” Udgan Toragana’s eyes looked serious. “The type of magic Teacher Maral was teaching you does the same thing so long as your aether in is the same shape every single time. What you want your aether to do doesn’t make a difference.”

_ So I would have hurt them even if I hadn’t meant to? _ Kharagal blinked away tears. “But… But how was I supposed to know that?” she got out.

“Practice,” said Udgan Toragana. “Similar looking aether shapes tend to act in similar ways. And it’s not wrong to cast magic when you don’t know what it does. At least so long as you don’t do it around things you don’t want to hurt.” She caught Kharagal’s eyes. “A lot of what I’ll be teaching you is how to be careful with your aether. That way you’ll know how not to hurt people by accident. Do you want to know how to do that?”

Kharagal nodded against Mommy. She didn’t want to hurt people she liked being with.

“Well then, I’ll be back tomorrow.” Udgan Toragana released Kharagal’s hands and put the skull mask back on her face. She didn’t look as spooky now that Kharagal knew there was a face under the mask. Mommy helped Udgan Toragana stand up again and she exited their tent.

Kharagal picked up the dish of beads Udgan Toragana had left and handed them to Mommy. Mommy laughed at that for some reason and put them on a crate where they wouldn’t get lost. Then she pulled Kharagal into a full body hug. They stayed like that for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay seriously… how are you supposed to figure out who has the potential to be a mage in the FFXIV world? And at what age? I foresee a lot of kids finding out by accident if they don’t grow up around people who already know what to look for. And given what magic in FFXIV is like… those accidents have a decent chance of going badly for everyone involved.


End file.
